


i believe the storybooks i read

by thelilacfield



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Dragons, F/M, Knights - Freeform, Princes & Princesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 10:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18754828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: They promised he’d only be here for a hundred days. But that grew to five hundred. Then a thousand. He’s been here for years of his life, from a boy to a man. And he’s never let go of the belief that each day could be the day his saviour comes.





	i believe the storybooks i read

**A/N:** Just copying over another ficlet from tumblr! Hope you enjoy, leave a comment to let me know if you do :) Title from  _I Know It's Today_ from  _Shrek: The Musical._

* * *

Candlelight flares, casting soft shadows against the curved walls of his room. He shifts on the bed, gazing up out of the hole in the roof caused by the castle crumbling throughout the years to look at the stars, winking down from the night sky. Breathing out a soft sigh and reaching for the book lying next to his bed, opening the heavy cover to mark off another day passed. Day number eight thousand four hundred and twenty-three.

They promised he’d only be here for a hundred days. But that grew to five hundred. Then a thousand. And he’s been here for years of his life, from a boy to a man. The only person he sees being the messenger who brings new books and food and materials once a month. He taught himself to sew, to map out the stars, to draw and paint and keep the solitude from driving him quite mad. And he’s never let go of the belief that each day could be the day his saviour comes.

A knight, they said. A champion of the kingdom, brave and bold and brash, the sort of man who would cross a blistering desert and climb a mountain and kill a dragon. Climb the swirling stairs to the door that’s been locked since the day he arrived and free him. And he will offer this knight a token of his gratitude, and he will accept with his eyes bright behind a heavy helmet, and sweep him from the tower that has been his prison. They will be married in the kingdom, and he will finally know true love’s first kiss.

That daydream has kept him sane through years of imprisonment, through hearing nothing but the dull rumbling of the dragon curled around the tower breathing. Seeing the gleaming of the jets of fire that stream from the dragon’s nostrils when it grows angry. Clasping his hands to his ears and frantically humming his mother’s lullaby to himself when he heard the distant screams of the knights who came before falling victim to the dragon. He knew that the right knight would know how to slay a dragon. There would be a day when it would be the dragon’s dying shrieks that he heard.

He must fall asleep reading the same love story again, tracing his fingertip over the familiar words of a princess promising herself to her handsome rescuer, a man with dark hair and bright eyes down on one knee, because he wakes to hear the dragon roaring, shaking the entire castle. A distant crash of another tower crumbling, and he scrambles upright, straightening his clothes frantically. Brushing his fingers over the velvet to smooth it down, taking up his looking-glass to correct his hair before he rushes to the window that looks out over the rest of the castle.

There’s a knight at the gate, and his heart soars. Silver armour, and a sword at his hip, a bow strapped to his back, and Vision smiles down at his saviour. Wondering how he looks beneath the helmet, if his eyes are blue or green or brown or grey, if his hair is black or red or blonde, whether his jaw is clean-shaven or stubbled, whether he’ll have gentle hands or callused.

In the stories, when the knight saves the princess, they always kiss. He sees the illustrations dancing behind his eyes, hands cupping faces, curved to waists, eyes closed and eyelashes tangling. Wondering how it will feel for someone’s lips to be on his, to feel someone’s arms around him, to know what it’s like to kiss and be kissed. He feels a flush creeping into his cheeks, and pulls his thoughts away from that. He can’t be flushed or unsightly when he meets his saviour.

Far below him, the dragon is uncurling from around the tower, wings extending above its heavy body, a dark blue that blends into the shadows, its eyes yellow as a cat’s. Its teeth and claws gleam white in the eerie light of the flickering torches, and Vision can see the glow in its throat as it spits a weak flame into the air. A warning.

He knows the pattern of the fights. The knight will charge, the dragon will breathe a churning whirl of flame. If the knight manages not to be caught in that and roast alive in his armour, a swipe of the dragon’s massive claws will swiftly dispatch him. He once saw a knight ripped in half by the dragon’s massive jaws. It haunted his nightmares for months, and still rears up in the shadows some nights.

But this knight doesn’t charge. As the dragon’s maw gapes open, he whirls behind a pillar, and disappears into the shadows while the dragon screeches in fury at lost prey, and Vision is leaning out of the window as far as he can without falling to search for the knight’s silhouette. Finding him the dark by the slight shift of the moonlight on his armour, the shine of his sword, and wondering if this will be the knight to save him.

The dragon yelps in agony when the knight slashes his sword across its tail, drawing a stream of purple blood flowing down the dark scales, shining in the light, and Vision cries out in fear when an enormous foot kicks the knight aside, and there’s the sound of metal scraping over the stones, and this must be it. His saviour is dead and he will stay in the tower for years more before another dares to try.

But no, the knight is getting to his feet, sword in his steady hand, and the dragon’s eyes are narrowing, focusing on its prey. Vision leans even further out into the night, his breath rising silvery in the air, watching the way the knight fights. Not like others he’s seen before, but more like a dancer, the movement of his body soft and fluid. Entrancing. Dodging another blast of fire, a swipe of claws, and sparks fly out when the claws drag against the blade of his swore. It must be somehow enchanted, for it doesn’t simply break under the pressure. A deft twist of hand and one of the dragon’s toes is severed from its foot, and it roars in agony as the knight slips beneath its belly and scrambles up its back.

And Vision nearly falls out of the window with excitement when he sees the knight drive his sword deep into the dragon’s back, the jewelled hilt shining. The dragon screams in agony, and so slowly slumps to the floor. Still. Finally slayed, and now he’s free, he’s _free_ , and he almost runs down the stairs before he remembers the instructions. He has to stay behind the locked door until a knight finds the key among the dragon’s horde and rescues him.

He just watches the knight pull his sword from the dragon, wiping the blood away on a scrap of fabric that probably once hung proudly around the shoulders of a knight who met his death at the dragon’s claws. Watches him cross the room to the crumbling staircase and then tilt his head up. Pull the bow from his back and nock an arrow, firing it upwards with a faint whistling sound.

Vision watches in awe as the arrows wraps itself around a sturdy anchor above his head, and the knight presses a button and shoots upwards as if flying. Until he’s level with the window, and Vision hastily moves backwards to allow him to climb in. Noticing that he’s a little - a lot, really - shorter than he seemed from above, but amazed by how smoothly he detaches his bow from above and sets it neatly against the wall. “That was incredible,” he says, feeling himself starry-eyed and overwhelmed. “It truly was. You are incredible.” Remembering the routine suddenly, grasping for the handkerchief left with him the day he was trapped, and holding it out, “Please, _please_ , take this. A token of my gratitude.”

A chainmail-gloved hand takes it from him, glancing at the crest of his kingdom embroidered to the corner, and tucks it carefully into the quiver still holding arrows. And those hands rise to carefully lift the helmet away, and a tumble of fiery hair falls over the silver armour, and when the knight lifts their head Vision gasps out, “You’re-”

“Wanda, champion of Lord Stark,” she says sweetly, setting her helmet down and pulling her gloves off, running slender fingers through her hair. “I hate that thing, it’s so hot in there and I can hardly see.” She unstraps her breastplate, detaches the metal coverings on her arms, and he averts his gaze momentarily when the tight crimson tunic she wears beneath is revealed, clinging to her curves and making his mouth suddenly dry. “So how long have you been up here?”

“Eight thousand four hundred and twenty-three days,” he says, and she arches an eyebrow at him.

“What’s that in layman’s terms?” she asks, and he flushes. The way she speaks, she can’t possibly be from court. Only thieves and peasants speak so informally.

“Twenty-three years,” he says stiffly, and she glances at him, detaching the greaves from her legs and revealing shapely calves and ankles in skintight breeches, making him stumble over his breathing.

“And no one ever slayed the dragon?” she asks, and he shakes his head. “Gods, I thought maybe this was dragon number five or something. Never send a man to do a woman’s job.”

“Sir...um, Miss Wanda, why are you taking your armour off?” he asks, and she just shakes her head at him. “Shouldn’t we leave?”

“Dragon’s dead, we don’t need to run,” she says, so light and unconcerned. As if she didn’t just fight a dragon and free him. “I plan on sleeping through the night before we leave. Your bed sure looks comfortable. Gossamer curtains and all.”

“But the door is locked!” he protests, and she smirks. Pulls a pin from her hair, another spiral of red falling around her shoulders, framing her pretty, freckled face, and works it into the lock, twisting it around for a moment before there’s a sharp click and the door swings open.

“And presto, we can leave whenever we want,” she says, and pulls her tunic down her thighs, drawing his attention to the curve of her waist into her hips.

“You aren’t like any knight I’ve ever met,” he says, and she grins at him.

“Sweetheart, I’m not like _anyone_  you’ve ever met.” She rolls onto his bed and seems to be asleep in moments.


End file.
